Brendan Eich resigns as Mozilla Corporation CEO

Is anyone else here disturbed that people are using the word lynching? Do people really think that a bunch of people tweeting that a man should not have a job is similar to kidnapping and murdering a person?

No, but is open discrimination and hate. In particular if that someone then loses his job, which is what puts food on his table.

If the Internet was tweeting to fire a CEO because he donated to a pro-gay campaign I would say its wrong, just like it was in this case.

I agree, Eich was discriminatory and hateful. Guess it's a good thing he stepped down.

The torch bearers have spoken. Next time will they come for you? Anything in your past is fair game. I don't think it would have mattered much regardless of the nature of the apology or lack thereof.

Eich stood by his shitty opinions and actions.

I'm not sure anyone should face economic consequences for their opinions. Actions, certainly. But Eich did not pass Prop 8 into law by donating money; California voters did that. So economic consequences for his opinions, no matter how disagreeable, is undeserved and improper.

He gave material aid to a successful campaign to reduce civil rights. Fuck him.

He should be fired for his praise of Indonesia being so anti-gay, not merely be made to step back to a prior position.

The only narrow minded people in this whole affair have been the pro-gay-marriage advocates that have proven without any doubt that they are intellectually incapable of accepting a stance different from theirs. Instead they have resorted to verbal tantrums and throwing around the term 'bigot' left and right in an infantile attempt to silence people who don't agree with them, with no arguments whatsoever beyond their strictly personal opinions.

All while, of course, they completely avoid talking about the damning fact that gay marriage has, in reality, absolutely nothing to do with equality, as confessed by a gay activist:

“Gay marriage is a lie.”“Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we’re going to do with marriage when we get there.”“It’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist.”

They reckon that if they just yell loud enough at Eich they will be able to divert the attention away from what their real goal is.

As my kindergarten teacher once taught our class: "Two wrongs do not make a right." It's one of the hardest pieces of wisdom to remember throughout our lives, but when we remember we become better, when we forget we usually regret it eventually when we remember - unless we forget it forever of course then things turn ugly. An eye for an eye is a nasty philosophy to live by.

It's funny how it's always the marginalized who are told to be the bigger man and turn the other cheek. As one commenter pointed out, it was telling that it was all the queer Mozilla employees extending olive branches to Eich, and not the other way around.

That's one thing that stands out to me, Eich's craptastical way of handling this can't have done him many favours. He is someone acting in his own interests, not Mozilla's, which isn't really indicative of a great CEO. I can't help but feel that Mozilla dodged a bullet.

You people need to learn what free speech is. Free speech is not allowing the government to impose limits on what you say -- please tell me where the government is involved here.

That's what the first amendment is, it's just unfortunate that they mislabeld it 'freedom of speech'. If you can't speak your mind because you might get fired for it and you depend on your work for your livelihood, you are effectively constrained from doing so, yet the first amendment has nothing to say about it. This can't reasonably be called 'freedom' (unless you're the kind of libertarian that thinks it's a glaring injustice that the government forces you at gunpoint to not sell yourself into slavery).

The first amendment is there to protect you from GOVERNMENT. Not anyone else. To say things the way you have it, then none of the rest of us would be able to express our freedom of speech.

Tell me, how can you call it freedom if I do not have the ability to disassociate myself from people who I believe support bigoted and hateful positions?

The only narrow minded people in this whole affair have been the pro-gay-marriage advocates that have proven without any doubt that they are intellectually incapable of accepting a stance different from theirs. Instead they have resorted to verbal tantrums and throwing around the term 'bigot' left and right in an infantile attempt to silence people who don't agree with them, with no arguments whatsoever beyond their strictly personal opinions.

All while, of course, they completely avoid talking about the damning fact that gay marriage has, in reality, absolutely nothing to do with equality, as confessed by a gay activist:

“Gay marriage is a lie.”“Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we’re going to do with marriage when we get there.”“It’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist.”

They reckon that if they just yell loud enough at Eich they will be able to divert the attention away from what their real goal is.

Hahaha, someone actually had the audacity to link that shitrag The Blaze here.

How cute that you would resort to attempting to put words in the mouths of others and then turn around and condemn the opinion based on the now false statement.

"Fixed that for you" doesn't excuse what you just did there because it means you don't even have a valid argument to defend so you literally made one up out of whole cloth to defend instead.

Quote:

This is disgusting and makes me ashamed to be an American right now. This was nothing more than an online lynching and anyone claiming this was the result of free speech in action is deluded beyond all hope.

Ahhh, so you believe that Eich should have the right to state his opinion and work to oppress others, but no one should be able to say anything against him. People like Eich get the right of free speech, but no one else does.[/quote]No, I never said that. Yell and shout and scream all you like, but you don't have the right to get the guy fired. I sincerely hope he sues the living crap out of Mozilla for being too weak to defend their own decision and actually stand for being tolerant and inclusive.

Mozilla's actions here today indicate to me they're vulnerable to political oppression from the left wing and thus are no longer worthy of being supported. They do not practice their own stated belief in freedom of speech or religion or anything else. THEY ARE HYPOCRITES.

The face of tolerance! FYI, I reported you to Ars for your personal attacks and requested they permanently ban you or I'll start a campaign to boycott Ars Technica. Seems to be an acceptable course of action, right?

Whatever happened to this 'freedom of speech' thing you keep going on about?

So the majority of Californians were opposed to gay marriage.Should that also mean the people from California are unfit to lead Mozilla? ... this is quite a slippery slope.

If he kept this opinion to himself and/or voted for Prop 8 (which is anonymous) and/or donated anonymously people would've probably thought he was the most fit CEO ever.

Is that free speech?

You need to go look up what Freedom of Speech is. Because you haven't come even close to it yet. The only protection is prevention of the government from persecuting you for your speech. Individuals are still free refuse to associate with you if you're a douchebag and say as much.

Of course individuals are, the [potential] problem here is that Mozilla is not a person. Mozilla is a company, a non-religious company that is not exempt from the 1964 Civil Rights Act which in part protects persons in terms of employment based on, among other things religious creed. Mr. Eich may have grounds for a violation of law for having been pressured (or asked to) resign from his employment based on his "free exercise" of religion.

I doubt that he will do so and I'm certain that the Mozilla lawyers have thoroughly looked at that particular angle, but if Eich wanted to be a total pain, he could have the EEOC on Mozilla.

Being a bigot is not a protected class.

Also, by hiring him, they possibly opened themselves up to hostile work environment claims by LGBT Mozilla employees, so that's not a one-way street.

There is no evidence that he was ever hostile towards anyone.

He was hostile to the gay population of California when he donated to Prop 8.

His forced resignation as CEO is a real shame. It is similar to he being forced to resign for supporting gays, but worse, as this is is reverse discrimination of a member of the majority by a very aggresive minority.

Forcing someone out of job for their political / personal views is a bad move no matter the affiliation. The only criterias should have been technical and managerial skills, which he had a lot. The board proved cowardice. Mozilla will pay their mishandling of the online lynching by stagnation or decline, as they will adopt a CEO with better social skills, and less technical skill.

Gay marriage is very much a political issue, because it has no clear "truth", as opposed to sexual liberty. It is generally accepted that what two consenting adults do in the privacy of the bedroom is nobody's business but their own. However marriage is a public institution, strictly correlated with making and raising kids for most of human history. It has little to no sense besides it.

And btw, anybody who watches politics today knows that many people have absolutely NO shame to twist the facts, the truths and throw tantrums for their political ends. Why should we pay the shameless mob any attention?

The only narrow minded people in this whole affair have been the pro-gay-marriage advocates that have proven without any doubt that they are intellectually incapable of accepting a stance different from theirs. Instead they have resorted to verbal tantrums and throwing around the term 'bigot' left and right in an infantile attempt to silence people who don't agree with them, with no arguments whatsoever beyond their strictly personal opinions.

All while, of course, they completely avoid talking about the damning fact that gay marriage has, in reality, absolutely nothing to do with equality, as confessed by a gay activist:

“Gay marriage is a lie.”“Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we’re going to do with marriage when we get there.”“It’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist.”

They reckon that if they just yell loud enough at Eich they will be able to divert the attention away from what their real goal is.

I truly do not understand. Mozilla is a software company. What does this mans personal beliefs on gay marriage have to do with anything?

You could ask the same thing about Chick-fil-a - though I'm really shocked a lot of people are surprised by what they support, I mean come on... you really didn't see it?

Anyways back to my point, I think it's one thing to express your belief but it's a whole different game when you send thousands of dollars in support of it as well - in this case an anti-gay organization.

You support your viewpoint being able to be supported with political speech but not others. Surprising!

Maybe one day you end up working for a company that doesn't support that viewpoint, you do great work, world changing work, make it to the top, then get pushed out because of it. Even though it had no real effect on your job.

Mozilla has fallen behind Chrome, Safari and Opera and has been losing market share for years now. Secondly, even half of the board members quit as a result of him being picked as CEO as a separate matter. That says a lot about him as it relates to his job performance.

He gave so much to the internet in the form of the JavaScript language, one of the main web technologies, and the internet basically turned around and burned him at the stake over a personal issue. I certainly support the equality of LGBT individuals (+ other letters) under the law, but I don't think Mr. Eich should be punished for being a "bigot", since this is essentially a political issue. Thanks internet +1

Sorry, but you don't get one free instance of bigotry for each coding standard you invent.

The torch bearers have spoken. Next time will they come for you? Anything in your past is fair game. I don't think it would have mattered much regardless of the nature of the apology or lack thereof.

Eich stood by his shitty opinions and actions.

I'm not sure anyone should face economic consequences for their opinions. Actions, certainly. But Eich did not pass Prop 8 into law by donating money; California voters did that. So economic consequences for his opinions, no matter how disagreeable, is undeserved and improper.

Donating money is action. Had no one donated money to the Prop 8 fund, it would not have passed.

It creates a precedent though - should everyone that donated lose their jobs? Should people who have donated to causes that were popular in the past but are now deemed wrong lose their jobs as well? Should it happen in the future?

Sorry if I seem a bit confused, US culture is so confusing as it trumpets itself as world leading but seems completely uncivilised and backward by comparison with it's own ideals.

I supported same-sex marriage long before the President, but I do think that his beliefs considerably less bad than, say, Dalton Trumbo of the Hollywood Ten. Trumbo, notably, did let his admitted Communist sympathies affect his work both overtly and covertly, and in helping to block other movies (as opposed to Eich here, where his sympathies were only detected via an illegal release of an organization's tax records). He was a sympathizer in the classic sense of opposing war with Nazi Germany so long as the Ribbentrop Pact held, and then switching immediately as soon as the Soviet Union was invaded. He was a member long after the atrocities of the Red Terror were known.

I can only think that many of the people supporting this move would have supported or excused the Hollywood blacklist, which made a similar kind of sense due to public opinion, etc.

The only narrow minded people in this whole affair have been the pro-gay-marriage advocates that have proven without any doubt that they are intellectually incapable of accepting a stance different from theirs. Instead they have resorted to verbal tantrums and throwing around the term 'bigot' left and right in an infantile attempt to silence people who don't agree with them, with no arguments whatsoever beyond their strictly personal opinions.

All while, of course, they completely avoid talking about the damning fact that gay marriage has, in reality, absolutely nothing to do with equality, as confessed by a gay activist:

“Gay marriage is a lie.”“Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we’re going to do with marriage when we get there.”“It’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist.”

They reckon that if they just yell loud enough at Eich they will be able to divert the attention away from what their real goal is.

Bigot.

JavaScript is bigot as well because Eich created it. There is bigotry all over the code hidden in the lines.

The only narrow minded people in this whole affair have been the pro-gay-marriage advocates that have proven without any doubt that they are intellectually incapable of accepting a stance different from theirs. Instead they have resorted to verbal tantrums and throwing around the term 'bigot' left and right in an infantile attempt to silence people who don't agree with them, with no arguments whatsoever beyond their strictly personal opinions.

All while, of course, they completely avoid talking about the damning fact that gay marriage has, in reality, absolutely nothing to do with equality, as confessed by a gay activist:

The Blaze?

Hey Mr. Open-minded. Choose to be gay. Right now. Were you successful?

LMAO @ people who are trying to support Brendan Eich and his crusade to relegate an entire class of people as second class citizens. I guess people think gays are the only people who should not be allowed to practice their own personal religious values and beliefs because some straight man who is completely unaffected says so.

The torch bearers have spoken. Next time will they come for you? Anything in your past is fair game. I don't think it would have mattered much regardless of the nature of the apology or lack thereof.

Eich stood by his shitty opinions and actions.

I'm not sure anyone should face economic consequences for their opinions. Actions, certainly. But Eich did not pass Prop 8 into law by donating money; California voters did that. So economic consequences for his opinions, no matter how disagreeable, is undeserved and improper.

California voters who watched Eich-funded commercials that flat out lied about how children would be subject gay propaganda in school if gay marriage was legal. That's the kind of ludicrous and intentially misleading crap that (the massively well funded) Prop 8 supporters used to steer opinion.

Ironic... looks like only one view was suppressed, along with the 52% of Californians (a blue liberal state the last time I checked) who agreed.

ONLY ONE VIEW GETS SUPPRESSED: support for traditional marriage.

Really? So has anyone said anything against traditional marriage (whatever that means, in the US in the late 19th century that meant being able to marry 12 yr old girls, hows that for tradition? In 1968 it meant a white person couldnt marry a colored person, how's that tradition doing?) or are you no longer free to have a traditional marriage, has anyone succeeded in outlawing traditional marriage?

Seems to me that anyone supporting traditional marriage is doing just fine, what not doing so fine is surpressing other people's rights to also be married. That, however, does not impact traditional weddings in the slightest or the supporters of it.

Personally, I think the lesson here is quite simple -- though, it has yet to be demonstrated fully by the fallout from this situation. It's this: Activism priorities and business priorities are simply not compatible. He was forced to resign based upon the priorities held by activists... and quite frankly, regardless of your position on his personal views, you have to acknowledge that he is a very talented and capable engineer; thus, Mozilla as a business has been damaged by losing their ability to place the "best man for the job" in the top position.

Putting aside the debate about "talented engineer" (see: Javascript), this man was appointed CEO. E - Executive. His engineering prowess does not make him the best man for that job. In fact, the board apparently argued at length over it.

Personally, I think the lesson here is quite simple -- though, it has yet to be demonstrated fully by the fallout from this situation. It's this: Activism priorities and business priorities are simply not compatible. He was forced to resign based upon the priorities held by activists... and quite frankly, regardless of your position on his personal views, you have to acknowledge that he is a very talented and capable engineer; thus, Mozilla as a business has been damaged by losing their ability to place the "best man for the job" in the top position.

Putting aside the debate about "talented engineer" (see: Javascript), this man was appointed CEO. E - Executive. His engineering prowess does not make him the best man for that job. In fact, the board apparently argued at length over it.

↓ Moderation: the use of "gay" as a pejorative is not ok (show post)

The gay board of Mozilla? So now he clearly was not the best man in the job, sure.

A wholly artificial legalism. In any case, it won't stop bullets as people begin to violently reassert their right to freedom of association.

So let's avoid the cute dancing around the point, just come out and say it: Are you advocating for a mass shooting? Who are your targets? When and where do you plan to do this? Be specific, please, so I can notify the appropriate authorities.

I'm simply pointing out a cold, hard truth: you cannot get away with subjecting the majority to the whims of a very small minority. Those who make peaceful association impossible make violence inevitable.

typical, you don't like the what you are hearing so you threaten violence. not only that, but it's their fault you have to act with violence.

The only narrow minded people in this whole affair have been the pro-gay-marriage advocates that have proven without any doubt that they are intellectually incapable of accepting a stance different from theirs. Instead they have resorted to verbal tantrums and throwing around the term 'bigot' left and right in an infantile attempt to silence people who don't agree with them, with no arguments whatsoever beyond their strictly personal opinions.

Funny, other than the words "pro-gay-marriage", I often have this exact same thought when bible thumpers arrive at my front door and tell me (at my own home no less!) that I'm going to hell.

The torch bearers have spoken. Next time will they come for you? Anything in your past is fair game. I don't think it would have mattered much regardless of the nature of the apology or lack thereof.

Eich stood by his shitty opinions and actions.

I'm not sure anyone should face economic consequences for their opinions. Actions, certainly. But Eich did not pass Prop 8 into law by donating money; California voters did that. So economic consequences for his opinions, no matter how disagreeable, is undeserved and improper.

Donating money is action. Had no one donated money to the Prop 8 fund, it would not have passed.

It creates a precedent though - should everyone that donated lose their jobs? Should people who have donated to causes that were popular in the past but are now deemed wrong lose their jobs as well? Should it happen in the future?

Sorry if I seem a bit confused, US culture is so confusing as it trumpets itself as world leading but seems completely uncivilised and backward by comparison with it's own ideals.

Is there a legal risk for a company having a bigot on staff? Is it easier to attract talent when the people you work with have bigoted views?

The only narrow minded people in this whole affair have been the pro-gay-marriage advocates that have proven without any doubt that they are intellectually incapable of accepting a stance different from theirs. Instead they have resorted to verbal tantrums and throwing around the term 'bigot' left and right in an infantile attempt to silence people who don't agree with them, with no arguments whatsoever beyond their strictly personal opinions.

All while, of course, they completely avoid talking about the damning fact that gay marriage has, in reality, absolutely nothing to do with equality, as confessed by a gay activist:

“Gay marriage is a lie.”“Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we’re going to do with marriage when we get there.”“It’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist.”

They reckon that if they just yell loud enough at Eich they will be able to divert the attention away from what their real goal is.

I wish somebody would tell me what my Secret Gay Agenda is supposed to be. I must have missed that briefing.

The torch bearers have spoken. Next time will they come for you? Anything in your past is fair game. I don't think it would have mattered much regardless of the nature of the apology or lack thereof.

Eich stood by his shitty opinions and actions.

I'm not sure anyone should face economic consequences for their opinions. Actions, certainly. But Eich did not pass Prop 8 into law by donating money; California voters did that. So economic consequences for his opinions, no matter how disagreeable, is undeserved and improper.

Donating money is action. Had no one donated money to the Prop 8 fund, it would not have passed.

It creates a precedent though - should everyone that donated lose their jobs? Should people who have donated to causes that were popular in the past but are now deemed wrong lose their jobs as well? Should it happen in the future?

Sorry if I seem a bit confused, US culture is so confusing as it trumpets itself as world leading but seems completely uncivilised and backward by comparison with it's own ideals.

Everyone with a job that relies on being visible should be very careful of doing something that is also visible. Situation like this is pretty old hat for politicians and celebrities.

The torch bearers have spoken. Next time will they come for you? Anything in your past is fair game. I don't think it would have mattered much regardless of the nature of the apology or lack thereof.

Eich stood by his shitty opinions and actions.

I'm not sure anyone should face economic consequences for their opinions. Actions, certainly. But Eich did not pass Prop 8 into law by donating money; California voters did that. So economic consequences for his opinions, no matter how disagreeable, is undeserved and improper.

Donating money is action. Had no one donated money to the Prop 8 fund, it would not have passed.

It creates a precedent though - should everyone that donated lose their jobs? Should people who have donated to causes that were popular in the past but are now deemed wrong lose their jobs as well? Should it happen in the future?

Sorry if I seem a bit confused, US culture is so confusing as it trumpets itself as world leading but seems completely uncivilised and backward by comparison with it's own ideals.

As I have mentioned before, all Eich had to do was repudiate it. I totally get that people change their minds, and their perceptions evolve. Eich in 2008 could have been very different from now. But he didn't. He even doubled-down with his comments about Indonesia recently.

He openly advocated for the suppression of a people, and never once recanted. It isn't that he donated to Pro 8 alone, it's that he's never come back around and said "My mistake, I confused my moral beliefs with what the government should do."

Seriously, he could even still believe that gay marriage is wrong and sinful as long as he repudiated his efforts to use the government to enshrine religious beliefs into law.

I truly do not understand. Mozilla is a software company. What does this mans personal beliefs on gay marriage have to do with anything?

You could ask the same thing about Chick-fil-a - though I'm really shocked a lot of people are surprised by what they support, I mean come on... you really didn't see it?

Anyways back to my point, I think it's one thing to express your belief but it's a whole different game when you send thousands of dollars in support of it as well - in this case an anti-gay organization.

You support your viewpoint being able to be supported with political speech but not others. Surprising!

Maybe one day you end up working for a company that doesn't support that viewpoint, you do great work, world changing work, make it to the top, then get pushed out because of it. Even though it had no real effect on your job.

Maybe one day you'll be discriminated against.

Like the gay people Eich was discriminating against when he donated to Prop 8?

I wonder, if a CEO of a major company in America was a vocal neo-nazi and contributed to causes to re-introduce segregation, ban minorities from getting married, having kids, etc. How many people would be defending his or her job then?

Why do you need to invoke hypotheticals here, and invoke Godwin's law to boot? Most CEOs are conservatives and I'm sure a lot of them supported efforts to restrict gay marriage at one point. As an example of a prominent business-type, Mitt Romney gave $10,000 in support of Prop 8 -- and he didn't even live in California at the time.

And Mitt Romney lost the election pretty handily.

Did he really? What makes you so confident that if elections were held next Tuesday, he wouldn't beat Obama? And how much did his defeat really have to do with him supporting Prop 8, considering that very few people were likely even aware of that?

But this isn't what this is about. This is about Mitt Romney the businessman who's involved in lots of companies, many of which I'm sure would make great targets for boycotts. And the countless other companies whose CEOs donated to destructive causes, which nobody gives a shit about.

The torch bearers have spoken. Next time will they come for you? Anything in your past is fair game. I don't think it would have mattered much regardless of the nature of the apology or lack thereof.

Eich stood by his shitty opinions and actions.

I'm not sure anyone should face economic consequences for their opinions. Actions, certainly. But Eich did not pass Prop 8 into law by donating money; California voters did that. So economic consequences for his opinions, no matter how disagreeable, is undeserved and improper.

Donating money is action. Had no one donated money to the Prop 8 fund, it would not have passed.

That's a ridiculous claim for a mere $1000. And donating money is not outright buying legislation (though it will be soon, thanks Chief Justice Roberts).

One is by definition the other. Prop 8 tried to codify special rights to a group of people, while excluding another group of people. Your word-wrangling has not found sympathetic ears in any court in the land.

Anyone who has a shred of self-awareness understands that the bill was fundamentally anti-gay at its foundation.

What course of action should befall the majority of people who voted for Prop 8?Should they all be fired?

This has been compared this to genocide already.After world war two we executed capital punishment on the perpetrators of genocide. If people truly believe that supporting Prop 8 is similar to "gassing jews" then should everyone who voted for it be held on trial?